A smattering of opinions on technology, books, business, and culture. Now in its 4th technology iteration.
23 February 2013
“15 of the stupidest items Jesse Jackson Jr, bought with embezzled funds”:http://www.ijreview.com/2013/02/37631-jesse-jackson-jr-pleads-guilty-to-living-off-of-campaign-money/ – Well I’ve never embezzled money, but I have certainly bought WAY stupider items than these. $9K on kid’s furniture? Seems downright sensible. A bunch of money on memorabilia? As someone who buys OSU tickets every year and has a closet full of OSU-themed clothing, what’s the problem?
For stupid, here is my personal list:
* A boat. Any boat. A moment’s purchase, and a lifetime of maintenance hassles. * That whole life insurance policy I got fooled into buying at one point. Dumb. Combining financial instruments into one complicated hairball just confuses you, which is probably the seller’s intention. * Every kitchen small appliance ever. The juicer, the bread machine, the rice cooker, the popcorn popper, etc. Used <6 times and then they clutter up some cabinet somewhere. I’ll make an exception for the toaster. * That cool-sounding weekend trip at a charity auction. Which you never end up using. At least the money went to charity though. * Antivirus software. Just don’t download sketchy crap. * Any meal at “claim jumper”:http://www.claimjumper.com. Terrible food, and lots of it. * The infamous “$100,000 couch”. Every MSFT employee in the 90s sold options to buy some household goods, and then lived to regret it 3-4 stock splits later when they realized that couch cost them $100K. * Golf club membership. Seemed like a fine idea, but no one else in the family was excited, which I could have figured out earlier…
Thankfully I have ducked some stupid things:
* any vacation time share. whew. * car lease. the last time i bought a car, they pushed me hard on this, telling me it was a huge win for me. so exactly why were they pushing it so hard? * UPDATE: hot tub. Suggested by a friend, we’ve never bought one of these, and in fact filled one in at a house we bought. Never knew why we needed a really big Petri dish.